Flying to Busan on a budget
Busan is a mid-sized city served by 1 airport in South Korea. Across the city's airports, around 20 airlines operate roughly 80 documented route pairings, connecting Busan to approximately 25 direct destinations worldwide. For budget travellers, having multiple airports in one city is usually good news. Secondary airports tend to host the lowest-cost carriers and the cheapest fares, but the trade-off is a slower (and sometimes pricier) ground transfer to the city centre.
The cheapest combination of base fare plus ground transport almost never lives at the same airport. As a rule of thumb, fly into the most-served airport when you have luggage, late arrival times, or a fixed work meeting. Fly into the cheapest secondary airport when you are travelling light, have flexible plans, and are arriving mid-day with the buses still running. We break down the airports below in order of route volume, so you can quickly see which carriers and destinations each one specialises in.
Airports serving Busan
Tips for landing in Busan cheap
- Compare airports before booking. The headline-cheapest fare into the secondary airport is sometimes wiped out by a EUR 20+ ground transfer to the city centre.
- Check the last public-transport time. Late arrivals can force a pricey taxi if you miss the bus or train; verify against the inbound landing time, not the scheduled.
- Pre-book ground transport for arrival. A pre-paid bus ticket bought online is usually the cheapest predictable option; airport-counter taxi rates can run two to three times the metered fare.
- If you have multiple airports, fly in and out of different ones. Use Google Flights' multi-city search to capture the cheapest combination of one-ways across two airports.
- Watch for currency exchange traps. The airport bureaux are the worst place to change money; withdraw from a major-bank ATM in arrivals instead.
Top destinations from Busan
| Code | City | Country |
|---|---|---|
| NRT | Tokyo | Japan |
| KIX | Osaka | Japan |
| TAO | Qingdao | China |
| BKK | Bangkok | Thailand |
| HKG | Hong Kong | Hong Kong |
| PEK | Beijing | China |
| PVG | Shanghai | China |
| CEB | Cebu | Philippines |
| MNL | Manila | Philippines |
| CJU | Cheju | South Korea |
| FUK | Fukuoka | Japan |
| MFM | Macau | Macau |
| REP | Siem-reap | Cambodia |
| TPE | Taipei | Taiwan |
| HGH | Hangzhou | China |
| SHE | Shenyang | China |
| NGO | Nagoya | Japan |
| GMP | Seoul | South Korea |
| HAN | Hanoi | Vietnam |
| NKG | Nanjing | China |
Airlines flying from Busan
American Airlines (AA)
United States
China Southern Airlines (CZ)
China
China Eastern Airlines (MU)
China
Air China (CA)
China
Hainan Airlines (HU)
China · Budget
All Nippon Airways (NH)
Japan
Japan Airlines Domestic (JL)
Japan
Korean Air (KE)
Republic of Korea
Ozark Air Lines (OZ)
United States
Cathay Pacific (CX)
Hong Kong SAR of China
Vietnam Airlines (VN)
Vietnam
Shanghai Airlines (FM)
China
Cebu Pacific (5J)
Philippines · Budget
China Airlines (CI)
Taiwan
Philippine Airlines (PR)
Philippines · Budget
Dragonair (KA)
DRAGON
AirAsia X (D7)
Malaysia
Jeju Air (7C)
Republic of Korea · Budget